News and events

STATEMENT ON THE 2007 ANGLICAN CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN GAUTENG IN MARCH 2007 BISHOPSCOURT THURSDAY 2ND FEBRUARY 2006

Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, The Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, this week has drawn together a number of representatives from the worldwide Anglican Communion, to form a steering committee for a major global Anglican Conference to be held in South Africa in March 2007.

This committee has been working together during the past two days to discuss structure, vision, objectives and outcomes. The working title for the conference is 'Towards Effective Anglican Mission' (TEAM): An International Conference on Prophetic Witness, Social Development and HIV & AIDS.

The vision of the conference is that people of the Anglican Communion will meet in a context of prayer and theology; sharing diverse experiences and views on specific social issues; renewing the church's commitment and capabilities to respond to God's call to service in the 21st Century.

At a meeting of Anglican Primates in Kanuga, USA in 2001 Archbishop Ndungane was entrusted with the responsibility of moving the Anglican Communion forward by addressing the vital social issues of poverty, trade, debt and HIV & AIDS. This was in response to the immoral state of affairs in our world today, where so few have so much and many, so little.

Nobel peace laureate Amartya Sen says: "Poverty must be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilities rather then merely lowness of income, which is the standard criterion of identifying poverty".

Capability is affected by other factors too, such as age, gender and disease but abject poverty - exacerbated by HIV & AIDS or other diseases, natural disasters and environmental degradation - limits any potential for holistic human development and robs people of their basic right to human dignity. This devastating situation creates the need for global dialogue that addresses issues of social development, which takes seriously the challenges of social exclusion and gender inequality, reducing the spread of HIV & AIDS and other diseases and the continuous exploitation of natural resources.

The Steering Committee has outlined seven objectives which include the sharing of the African experience with the others in the Anglican Communion, critically reviewing the response of the Anglican Communion to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and encouraging others to further collaborative efforts towards achieving the goals.

Assessing the first Pan African Anglican Consultation on HIV & AIDS, which took place in August 2001 in South Africa, is another objective.

An opportunity presents itself for the Anglican Communion to explore fresh and innovative strategies towards poverty eradication, through the sharing of lessons learnt and experienced.

Hoped for outcomes include creating a sense of urgency and the possibility for action to achieve the MDGs, securing resources mobilization and disseminating strategy for programmes that achieve the MDGs, producing a consensus document reflecting lessons learnt on each MDG and to providing material and information for the 2008 Lambeth Conference.